D&D General Which was your favourite Forgotten Realms Cosmology?

[EzekielRaiden]

A great many D&D players are fans of mythology, folk tales and Eng Lit, and therefore see meaning in D&D concepts far beyond a handful of rules. The land of the fae takes many forms, from Spencer to Lewis Carrol and Zelazny to Rossetti, from Celtic to Norse mythology. But there are common threads that run all the way through to D&D.

I would not expect such fans to be annoyed by the "overuse" of such things then. If you're a fan, I would expect it to be generally a positive...unless there's something specific about the Feywild in particular that makes its use, instead of some other thing's use, a problem.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

That's a bit odd, considering the very idea of it didn't exist before 2008. I'm curious what ways you feel it's been overused, given how little time it's had and thus how much of it needed to be articulated in the first place.

Every creature seems to be tied to fey these days, often completely unnecessarily.

 

[Shardstone]

Every creature seems to be tied to fey these days, often completely unnecessarily.

It's because a lot of ideas are from different cultural fairy tales.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Every creature seems to be tied to fey these days, often completely unnecessarily.

This has happened to like, what, 3-4 types of creatures? Elves, Goblinoids, and Changelings? That’s it, right? I think it makes sense for all of them to be connected to Fey in D&D, they were in folklore. There have been a few new fey races (Fairies, Harengon), but most 5e races and monsters have no connection to the Feywild. IMO, it’s mostly just making up for the lack of fey in earlier D&D.

And as I said earlier, Fey is one of the most uncommon creature types in 5e.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

It's because a lot of ideas are from different cultural fairy tales.

And? None of that necessitates the hamfisted twee way it’s implemented in D&D.

 

[Shardstone]

And? None of that necessitates the hamfisted twee way it’s implemented in D&D.

Sounds more like you have a problem with execution then concept.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Define 'twee'.

Because I'm not sure 'magical murder forest' translates to that word.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Then you use the term radically different from me.

"I dislike any setting containing the Feywild, it's so overused" = specifically the Feywild, the place with that specific name, is overused
"I dislike any settings containing anything Fae, it's so overused" = anything involving fairies, fae nobles, or any other myths, folklore, legends, or tropes associated with Annwn, Elfame, Avalon, Tir na nOg, etc. is overused

It would be like saying "Hershey's" stands in for all possible chocolate or "Taco Bell" stands in for all possible Mexican/Tex-Mex foods. Yes, Hershey's is a common and popular chocolate, but you can dislike Hershey's and still like other forms of chocolate (hi, hello, I don't eat Hershey's chocolate bars, but I love many forms of chocolate truffles).

My point had nothing to do whether it's overused, just to dispute the statement that it didn't exist before 2008. The Seelie Court as described on page 9 of the 2e Planescape product Planes of Chaos, is the definite precursor to the Feywild, already unmoored from a secure location in the Great Wheel in its wanderings, but not a full plane quite yet. It's very similar to how its sister plane slowly changed from the Demiplane of Shadow to the Shadowfell over the course of multiple editions.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

My point had nothing to do whether it's overused, just to dispute the statement that it didn't exist before 2008. The Seelie Court as described on page 9 of the 2e Planescape product Planes of Chaos, is the definite precursor to the Feywild, already unmoored from a secure location in the Great Wheel in its wanderings, but not a full plane quite yet. It's very similar to how its sister plane slowly changed from the Demiplane of Shadow to the Shadowfell over the course of multiple editions.

...and I would also say "the Shadowfell" did not exist before 2008, even though I know without doubt that precursor ideas did.

"The Feywild" and "the Shadowfell" refer to those specific instances. If one means generic fairy-anything or shadow-anything, it is both clearer and more accurate to use generic terms.

 

[Mephista]

On the issue of seelie and unseelie courts....

I consider the seldarine and dark seldarine (aka Corelleon and Lolth pantheons) to basically be the embodiment of those courts for the average D&D game. I feel like there's a ton of parallels between Lolth and Queen Mab, as well as C.L. and Oberron, that I just can't ignore it.

Another fun little tidbit - Avarandor, home of the Seldarine and the Eladrin... was also known as the Land of Dreams, supposedly because it was the region where dreams literally came to life. That living-dream theme is a heavy part of the Feywild; I'd say that was pretty clearly stolen from the elf-afterlife-plane.